We are STILL eating chili from earlier in the week. We made a huge batch, so it fed us for several lunches, and also stocked the freezer.

The honey mustard chicken was amazing! I doubled the recipe and brought it to a mama that welcomed a new tiny at the end of October. She sent me an email raving about it, so it will be a keeper.

The pulled pork tacos turned into roasted pork tenderloin with blueberry sauce. I did not have any limes, and I needed to improvise. It was really tasty, and the kids gobbled it up.

Tonight for desert I pulled together a yummy cobbler with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and apple. I squeezed a meyer lemon over the top of the fruit with a little zest, then drizzled honey on the top. I used this recipe for the crumble, using 2tbs honey mixed with whole plain yogurt instead of cane sugar. Yummo!

I am running on fumes. Dave was out of town for most of the week. My housekeeper came on Wednesday, and my house was a shit-show by Friday morning. I stand in AWE of single parents. You just plain rule.

Pity party is over, so moving on to the re-cap.

The soup rocked my world, and is now occupying much of the deep freezer space.

I forgot to go to the store/was too embarrassed to go in public unshowered, and in the same clothes from the day prior/could not bear to muscle two toddlers into the car, so I did not get to eat my yummy salmon on Tuesday. Pretty sure I ate the remainder of the kids meal for my dinner. Since I cannot recall what it was, it was clearly amazing.

By Wednesday, I had a bit of a second wind, and I made the kids chicken tenders for dinner. They were SO awesome! Really cool because they can be frozen and then just re-heated when needed. I see this getting added to my next cookapalooza weekend.

I know that I keep telling you about this chicken in the crock pot, so I will not go on and on and on about its deliciousness. Moved it to tonight because the bird was not quite defrosted. I decided to roast some veggies (sweet potatoes, carrots, and zucchini) to go with the chicken, and found a recipe that suggested tossing the veggies in some bacon grease prior to roasting. I thought….well, I DO happen to have some saved bacon grease. I mean, why am I saving it, if I was not planning to use it to cook something. It was the most humongous hit ever. Between the chicken and the veggies, I have never seen the boys eat so much. (Lets hope full bellies means sleeping past 6 am!)

The shrimp tacos were great, but the big winner was the meatballs! I thought I would have enough to freeze, but only 3 ended up making it to the fridge. Made a mental note to double the recipe next time.

I finally got around to making the pumpkin muffins this afternoon. On a whim, I used a different recipe. What a great decision! Now…I have had some really amazing pumpkin muffins, but these really are the very best I have EVER had. Ever. Trevor was sneaking them off the cooling rack.

In addition to what was on the menu, in keeping with my pumpkin obsession, I made pumpkin french toast on Sat morning. I subbed in maple syrup for the brown sugar in the recipe. Honestly, you could leave that out altogether, and it would still taste great. Trevor and I loved it, but Lucas and Dave were not terribly impressed.

This week is going to be a bit wonky due to some commitments that will take one or both of us out of the house for dinner. Here we go…

Sunday: We skipped seafood tonight because I needed to re-stock the kitchen with my favorite soup. This chicken enchilada soup is SO versatile, and freezes great. I used a huge red pepper from our garden, two large sweet potatoes instead of russet, and tossed in a jalapeno. I did not have any butternut squash, so I used the acorn squash that did not get used last week. (Ahem) Instead of transferring to a blender in batches, I used my immersion blender. So much easier. This will do a really good job stocking the freezer. YAY!

Thursday: Whole chicken in the crock pot, steamed broccoli and wild rice. I get two whole pastured chickens a month, and this not only feeds us for several days, it also makes delicious stock! If you have not yet tried to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot…it is time. You will not believe that it took you this long.

Quinoa stuffed peppers we really yummy and SO easy to make. I had some extra filling, so I delivered this meal on Tuesday to a new mama in our mother’s club. She also raved about its deliciousness. (Picture does not do it justice.)

Thursday morning, Trevor helped make yummy banana pancakes for a birthday treat. He is always so very eager to help.

I thought the penne pasta we had for dinner Thursday night was amazing, I kept refilling my bowl. but Dave was not as much of a fan. He still ate it though. 🙂

Sat evening, we had family over to celebrate our sweet three year old. He was the center of attention, and loved every minute. We decided to make a self serve burrito bar, and made this super easy crock pot salsa chicken. We have a ton of left overs, so I will be putting some of the meat in the freezer for dinners in the future.

This week is another wonky one because I have trainings or commitments that will mean I am gone for dinner. Boooo. I plan to cook a bunch of things ahead to prepare.

Sunday: Due to the excess chicken, we are going to rock some chicken burritos tonight. Or some chicken nachos. Will depend on the mood.

Whole foods was all out of scallops (grrrrrr) so I made the orzo with shrimp instead. SO flippin’ glad I did, because it was amazing.

I ended up making Monday night a scrounge night, and moved the one pot wonder to weds. It was just ok. A bit slimy for my liking, and I put in too many red pepper flakes. Spicy!!!

Back to Tuesday. I have decided that recipes that require excessive “meat handling” are not my fave. The chicken was really good, but who wants to wash their hands 75 times during meal prep? It went something like: Pull one chicken breast from package, and put into the ziplock, wash up, grab the mallet and pound said chicken, then remove to a plate, wash, rescue child from top of kitchen table, start on the next chicken breast, wash, mallet, plate, wash, stop child from emptying ziplock box contents…

Anywho…you get the idea. Just the prep alone seemed to last an hour due to the constant stop and start and hand washing. Here is the finished work of art heading into the oven. (Finally)

The rest of the week did not go according to plan. Our CSA was out of spinach, so the salad planned for Thurs ended up being Amy’s burritos. Friday, Dave went to a baseball game with a buddy, and I think I made a PB and Honey sandwich for myself. Yum. Since we still have the pork chops and bacon, they are on the menu for Sunday.